NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Germ plasm

The germ plasm (or polar plasm) is a zone found in the the cytoplasm of the egg cells of some model organisms (such as C. elegans, Drosophila, Xenopus), which contains determinants that will give rise to the germ cell lineage. As the zygote undergoes mitotic divisions the germ plasm is ultimately restricted to a few cells of the embryo, these germ cells then migrate to the gonads.

The german biologist August Weismann formulated the germ plasm theory in the 1890's, in which he stated that the germ plasm was the essential nuclear part of germ cells, that it remained qualitatively unchanged from the zygote (in contrast with somatic cells) and was responsible for heredity.

See also: developmental biology.

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Results from FactBites:

Soviet Biology (16123 words)
	They do this because of their fear of being ridiculed by Soviet readers and audiences firm in the knowledge that the germs of organisms, or the sexual cells, are a result of the vital activity of the parent organisms.
	But once we accept the absolutely true and generally known proposition that the reproductive cells, or the germs, of new organisms are produced by the organism, by its body, and not by the very same reproductive cell from which the given, already mature, organism arose, nothing is left of the "neat" chromosome theory of heredity.
	The germ cells and the cells of the soma should be regarded not as daughter and parent generations, but as twin sisters, of which one (the soma) is the feeder, protector, and guardian of the other."

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